Against All Enemies

by John Gilstrap

  “What about Haynes?” Dylan asked. “He was my first CO.”

  “Someone tried to kill him the other night.” Jonathan explained.

  “What happened?”

  “He was on his way to the Metro in DC and a homeless guy confronted him with a shotgun. Haynes blew him away with an entirely illegal pistol, and it looks like he’ll soon be under indictment.”

  “For murder?” Dylan sounded incredulous.

  “For the pistol,” Jonathan said.

  “You’re shitting me. He defended himself?”

  “Yup. But he did it illegally.”

  “I think all of that is bullshit,” Boxers said. “Haynes Moncrief is under arrest for not having the decency to die and get off the president’s back.”

  “Give it a rest, Big Guy,” Jonathan said. By no means an apologist for Darmond’s disastrous presidency, Jonathan refused to adhere to the blogosphere’s line that the president was somehow a traitor. He thought the president was misguided and an egotist, and ultimately harmful for the nation, but he’d been duly elected twice, and even a man with no enemies in the media-that-mattered had limited power to undermine two hundred fifty years of American progress. He couldn’t wrap his head around the notion of Darmond being that Machiavellian. Machiavellian, yes, but just not that much so.

  And despite the president’s shortcomings, Darmond was still commander-in-chief, and the apparatus that reported to him had no right to undermine that. Could that be what was actually happening?

  “So, let me get this straight,” Jonathan said. “You figured all of this out, and you therefore thought that the best way to seek help was to send secrets to foreign enemies.”

  “It worked, didn’t it?”

  “Did you consider making a phone call?” Boxers asked.

  “Who would I call? There’s that small matter of being wanted for murder.” He tossed up his hands. “What’s the old saying? There’s no arguing with success. You’re both here.”

  Jonathan scrubbed his scalp with his fingertips, a tell for frustration. “So, now that you’ve shared this tidbit, what do you expect us to do with it?”

  “I have no idea. I just didn’t want to be the only one who knew. From there, I defer to you. You have better connections.”

  Jonathan looked to Boxers for help and was rewarded with broken eye contact.

  “Okay, let’s think this through,” Jonathan said. “We’ll assume that your theory is correct—that people in senior levels of power are in the process of planning a coup. Who do we tell?”

  “You know who comes to my mind,” Boxers said. “Our special asset.”

  Jonathan knew he was referring to Wolverine. “It’s a little early for that one.” He deliberately avoided the gender-specific pronoun because Boomer didn’t have a need to know. “We need more information.” To Dylan, he said, “How confident are you in your conclusions?”

  “Confident enough to expose myself like this.”

  “Isn’t there a chance that you’re misreading the tea leaves? That there’s another entirely plausible and reasonable explanation for what you’ve seen, but that you need to squint at it a little differently?”

  A shrug. “Anything’s possible, Dig. I won’t say that there’s no other conceivable explanation—that’s your call.” He reached into the ditty bag he’d been guarding so closely and produced two computer drives. “Here it is,” he said. “All of it. These are the drives I took off of Campbell. They’re yours now. I’m out of it.”

  “No, you’re not,” Boxers said. “You can’t light a fire this big and just walk away.”

  Dylan stood. “Watch me.”

  Boxers took three steps closer and towered over the other man. “No,” he said. “You watch me. Sit back down while sitting is still an option for you.”

  Dylan seemed shocked. “What’s that all about? I’m not the enemy.” He sat down, though.

  “We don’t know who you are yet,” Jonathan said. “We know who you were and we know who you claim to be, but the rest is up for grabs. We’re going to need you to stay close for a while.”

  Dylan’s features darkened. “What do you mean by ‘stay close’?”

  “That means you need to come back to the States with us.”

  “The hell I am.”

  “We’re not going to turn you in. You’re not even going to have to go through customs or immigration. But what you’re talking about is huge. You’ve already gone through those files, so you know your way around. That’s a lot more than my team and I can say. I have a computer wizard back home that can do amazing things with records such as these, but she’s going to need your help to reconstruct what you’ve already found.”

  “I cannot afford to go back to the United States. I’ll be a sitting duck.”

  Jonathan’s patience was fraying. “This isn’t about you, Boomer. In fact, this is about stuff that’s way, way bigger than you. Or me or Boxers, for that matter. You’re talking about a coup to overthrow the United States government. As opposed to the possibility of you getting caught.”

  “For shit you already told us you did,” Boxers added. “Let’s not forget that we found you pretty easily.”

  “Because my wife pointed you in my direction,” Dylan said. “And because I agreed to meet.”

  “It was still easy,” Jonathan said. “No one can stay underground forever. Sooner or later, getting caught is in your future. When that happens, you get dead or you go to jail. There’s really no third option. If you come with us, we’ll keep you under wraps.”

  “How?”

  Jonathan growled his frustration. “Jesus Christ, Boomer. You want details? I don’t have those yet. Baby steps, okay? If you’ve had your ear to the Community rumor mill, then you know I’m pretty good at helping people disappear. Granted, I’ve never done that for someone on the top of Interpol’s most wanted list, but like I said before, baby steps. You come back, we’ll get you to a very secure place out in the country, and you can work with my staff in complete secrecy to figure out what is going on.”

  “But I already told you what is going on.”

  Jonathan stood. “We’re not going through this again. You’re coming back with us. You need to decide whether it’s going to be willingly or in zip cuffs.”

  “Either way works for me,” Boxers said.

  “Will I be able to see my family?”

  “Probably not,” Jonathan said. “They’re under pretty tight scrutiny. I don’t think that’s a risk you should be anxious to take.”

  Dylan hadn’t moved from his seat. “You seriously would truss me up and take me against my will?”

  “It’s one of my best things,” Boxers said.

  “But neither of us wants it to be that way,” Jonathan assured. “Come on, Boomer, tap your inner patriot. This is the right thing to do.”

  “I just don’t know what more I can add,” Dylan said. Jonathan could tell it was a last-ditch hedge.

  “We’ll all find that out together,” Boxers said.

  “Even if we accept everything you’ve said as gospel, and you’ve landed on the what of it all, we haven’t touched on the why. Or, even more important, we don’t know the who.”

  “The Commander was very good about covering his tracks,” Dylan said. “The who is going to be tough.”

  “And I know just the gal for the challenge,” Jonathan said. He made a circular, beckoning motion with his hand. “Come on,” he said. “For the adventure if not for the patriotism.”

  Dylan laughed as he stood and walked toward the door. “Do people actually respond to corny lines like that?”

  “As a wise man told me not ten minutes ago, there’s no arguing with success.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Thanks to some interference run by Stanley Rollins, Boxers received clearance to make US landfall at Hurlburt Field in the Florida panhandle. An extension of Eglin Air Force Base, Hurlburt had been the home to countless Special Forces training operations and launches over
the years. Ordinarily, civilian aircraft were not allowed, and that was where Rollins came in. He made a few phone calls, and it was done. Enough spooky shit transpired at Hurlburt that whoever might have had questions knew better than to ask them.

  It hadn’t been an easy negotiation, though. “I need access to Hurlburt,” Jonathan had said on a secure line.

  “Does that mean you’re coming back with precious cargo?” Rollins asked.

  The question sat uneasily on Jonathan’s stomach. “I’d prefer not to answer that, Colonel.”

  “Why?”

  “I’d prefer not to answer that, either.”

  “Listen, Scorpion, if you have him, then I want to debrief him.”

  “That’s not the deal,” Jonathan said. “I don’t want you or anyone from the Puzzle Palace anywhere near us. I just want to make landfall at Hurlburt so I don’t have to deal with all the Homeland Security crap. I want to touch down, drink some of Uncle Sam’s gas, and then take off again. That’s it.”

  “I want to talk with him.”

  “You’re assuming I have him.”

  “Don’t play that game with me, Scorpion.”

  “Let’s not forget who invited whom to whose party, Colonel,” Jonathan said. This point was nonnegotiable. He’d given his word to Dylan. Perhaps he hadn’t had the authority to do so, but this wouldn’t be the first time with that scenario. “I don’t want to see troops, I don’t want to see government agents when we land. I don’t even want to see a Walmart greeter. Are you understanding me?”

  “It’s not your field, Scorpion. It’s Uncle’s field. You don’t get to call the shots.”

  Why did life have to be this complicated? “Why did you reach out to me for this mission in the first place, Colonel?”

  As sigh on the other end of the phone. “Because you’re the best at what you do. Is that it? You just want to be sucked up to?”

  “Screw you, Colonel.” He said it with enough smile in his voice to maintain reasonable doubt over how much he meant it. “You told me that you trust me. Remember that?”

  “I remember a lot of what I say.”

  “Then remember this better,” Jonathan said. “I’m not playing games here. I told you from the very beginning that I’m not doing the Marshal Service’s job for them. My mission is to get to the bottom of what’s going on and to bring a PC to safety. You have to trust that what I’m asking you to do is all in service to those goals.”

  Silence.

  “Okay, Colonel?”

  “Yeah, okay,” Rollins said. “I’m going to trust that you know what you’re doing.”

  “I appreciate that,” Jonathan said, and then he hung up before Rollins could wiggle off the hook.

  Rollins was true to his word. Upon touchdown the only people they saw on the ground at Hurlburt were the ground crew technicians. As soon as Big Guy killed the engines, a tanker truck was there, delivering the much-needed gas that would get them back to a commercial aviation airport outside of Fredericksburg, Virginia. The Federal Aviation Administration would have had a panic attack if they’d known that Boxers had flown as many hours as he had over the past two days.

  Jonathan was aware, though, and he recognized the need for sleep. It only made sense, then, that Jonathan be the one to drive the Batmobile out to the Compound. Fisherman’s Cove was much closer, but given Dylan’s infamy, Jonathan didn’t want to risk that many innocents in case his hunters cornered their prey. Their aircraft had been touched by a lot of people today, and it would have been foolish to ignore the possibility that one of them had placed some sort of tracker on the plane. If that were the case, then Fisherman’s Cove would be the most likely place for the hunters to come hunting. Precious few people even knew about the Compound.

  By the time Jonathan pulled the Batmobile through the gates to the Compound, it was nearly ten o’clock at night. Darkness had fallen, Big Guy and Dylan were both snoring in their respective seats, and the guard team looked more than a little startled to see the boss arriving at such a late hour.

  “Mister Horgan,” the guard said. “You are here.”

  The emphasis startled him. “Why do you say it that way? Had someone predicted that I’d be here?”

  The guard pointed up the hill to a car-shaped silhouette that lurked off the road a bit. “Him. His name is Rollins. Logbook shows that he was here a few days ago. He tried to talk his way in, but of course we wouldn’t let him. We told him that we had no knowledge of any plans for you to come this way tonight. I’m sorry if we should have let him in, but—”

  Jonathan silenced the kid with a raised hand. “No, son, you did exactly the right thing. How long has he been sitting there?”

  The guard checked his watch. “Almost three hours.”

  Jonathan smiled. “Huh.”

  “He gave us his cell number and asked us to wake him when you arrived.”

  “Don’t do that,” Jonathan said. “Let him sleep. And if when he wakes up and asks, you haven’t seen us.”

  The kid looked confused. “Okay,” he said.

  “And if he gets out of his car, shoot him,” said Boxers from the passenger seat. His eyes were still closed.

  Confusion went to terror in the guard’s face. “Seriously?”

  “No,” Jonathan said. “Not seriously.”

  Boxers laughed, a rumbling, contented sound that made the car vibrate.

  The guard didn’t know what to say.

  “Look at me,” Jonathan said to him. “And listen to me. Do not shoot him if he gets out of his car. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir. I understand.”

  Jonathan studied the kid’s expression for a while longer. In his experience, few creatures in the universe were more dangerous than a young man with a gun that he had permission to shoot. “Okay,” he said. “Keep up the good work.”

  “Yes, sir.” The kid seemed to be resisting the urge to snap to attention.

  “Good night,” Jonathan said. He rolled up the window and waited for the gate to rumble open. “Jesus, Box,” he said. He wanted to sound angry, but laughed in spite of himself.

  “I just saw an opportunity,” Boxers said. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

  It turned out that the adjutant who sat perpetually outside General Karras’s office was a local boy named Tommy Piper. He was twenty-three years old—older than Ian would have guessed—and was kin to a long line of local Pipers. The line was destined to stop with him, however, thanks to an explosion in the mines that killed his father and two brothers when Tommy was only eleven. His mother hadn’t taken the stress well, and in trying one night to drown herself with a few belts of moonshine, she drowned herself for real while skinny-dipping in the quarry. Social workers had sniffed around Tommy for a few years, but this was West Virginia, where eleven-year-olds had been working hard for generations, and the government do-gooders ultimately lost interest in him.

  One day at a time grew into a month at a time, and then, in the normal course of things, he evolved into an adult with little ambition but tons of street smarts. When he got word of Karras’s Patriots’ Army, he jumped at the opportunity to become a member—of anything, probably, but this in particular—and he impressed the right people.

  Ian had grown to like Tommy, and the sentiment appeared to be mutual. He greeted Ian with a bright smile. “Good morning, Colonel,” he said.

  “Hello, Tommy. Is the Old Man available?”

  “Yes, sir, he is.” He lifted the receiver on his phone and pressed the button. When Karras answered, Tommy said, “Colonel Carrington to see you, sir.”

  Karras said, “Send him in.”

  When he hung up and lifted his gaze, Tommy looked offended. “Why are you laughing?”

  Ian waved the concern away with broad strokes of his hand. “No, no, it’s not about you. It’s the phone. You can hear every word from the other side of the wall. What’s the point?”

  “It’s the way the general wants it, sir.” His answer came straight, devoid of i
rony.

  “Then so he shall have it,” Ian said. He opened the inner door and let himself into Karras’s office. If this were a real army with a real general, he’d have entered smartly and snapped to attention. As it was, he just entered.

  Karras looked up from the stuff on his desk. “Good morning, Colonel. Why are you giving my adjutant a hard time?”

  Ian pulled out one of the metal torture seats and helped himself. “I suppose it’s what I’m good at.” He waved his fingers at the flotsam that cluttered Karras’s desk. “What the hell do you do with all that paper?”

  “Mostly I wish that it wasn’t there.” He chuckled. “We feed a lot of people here. We burn through lots of ammunition and we buy a lot of structures. All of that has to be contracted and paid for.” He laughed at what he saw in Ian’s face. “That’s the difference between government procurement and insurrection. Cash flow has to be managed.”

  Ian acknowledged the point by arching his eyebrows. He’d never given that a lot of thought. Uncle Sam employed legions of rear-echelon types to manage that stuff. It ever occurred to him that it would fall on the shoulders of the man who claimed to be in charge.

  “Please tell me that’s not why you’re here,” Karras said.

  “Actually, no. I’ve got some strategic issues we need to discuss.”

  The general’s eyes brightened. “Sounds a lot more interesting that what I’m doing now. I’m all ears.”

  “I think we need to reexamine our strategic model. A couple of weeks ago, you told me that the general wanted to move away from my single-shooter teams. I thought he was right then, and I think he’s even more right now. The same problems that existed for the single shooters exist for the three-man teams we’ve been assembling. Such a small group has to be prepared to perform that many more operations. We just don’t have the availability for that kind of training.”

  Karras sat taller in his seat. It was his tell for getting defensive. “If you’re suggesting an entirely different strategy, then this conversation is over. General Brock was very specific—”

  “Just listen for a bit.”

  Karras recoiled. He looked unsure whether to be offended or amused.